In the Mood of 1Q84

Novel has always not my cup of tea for reading in the last few years as I guess I am lacking now the kind of mood as well as the senses required for appreciating the novel. The latest release of "1Q84" from the Haruki Murakami, the most celebrated contemporary novelist in Japan, is certainly one of the few exceptions for me.

It comes in 2 volumes with many readers believe that more volumes to be released in future. The book was published in Japan mid last year and has sold for more than a million copies. It was reported that the English version will only be available in Sept 2011, definitely a long wait for the fans eagerly awaiting the release. I read the mandarin-translated version from Taiwan, published recently in Nov 09. The translated version is certainly also a big hit among the local Chinese readers as well.

There are different interpretations for the title of the book whichever you choose to believe. The 1Q84 stands for 1984, a reference to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (I have not read before but now included in my to-read list). The Q can also refer to the Questions or doubts. The story is fantastic and imaginative with each chapter dedicated to the tale of one of the two main characters - Aomame (青豆) and Tengo (天吾), who are in the memory of each other since the age of 10, and both are searching for each other for 20 years. The story shifts back and forth in between the 2 main characters, seems in isolation and yet so close, and finally it interlinks in the second volume. Despite this arrangement, the story is amazing and it keeps the readers' interests to keep on reading to find out their fates, love and of course a bit of sex scenes (I like the portion of the story in between Tengo and his elderly married girlfriend) and a few murders scenes in between etc. An interesting observation is the occupation for Tengo's father which is unheard of for me. He worked for NHK going door-to-door collecting the network's reception fee. I guess such occupation no longer exist now. We used to have television license fee in Malaysia in my teenage time, which is abolished long time back in 1999.

I read a couple of chapters in my leisure before the bedtime and it took about 3 weeks to complete the two volumes. I certainly looking forward to the future volumes, if any to be published.

The Great Depression Ahead

I have recently read the mandarin-translated version of the book “The Great Depression Ahead - How to Prosper in the Crash Following the Greatest Boom in History” written by Harry S. Dent.

The author predicts that the world will be entering a long period of economic depression from 2010 till the beginning of the decade of 2020. The so-called “Perfect Storm” scenario will occur when the three massive bubbles (stocks, real estate, and commodities ) which have been booming for the last few decades have all reached their peak and are deflating simultaneously.

His bold economic predictions are based on the demographics and generational spending trends. His analysis is logical and supported also by the immigration trends within the regions , countries or cities. He uses basically the same theory to predict the economic booms and busts for various countries in different parts of the world which includes US, China, India, Europe etc. I could not locate any predictions for small country like Malaysia and I believe our economic is really insignificant to majority of the readers.

I must say that reading this book is an eye opener for me. It provides at least some guidance on predicting the unpredictable. I would strongly recommend reading this book in this year end holiday.